It continues to be our mission to guide RVers to new places, reveal authentic cultures and offer a value unlike any other travel company. We understand the importance of cherished memories and bonding relationships, and we have included that spark of passion as an ingredient in all that we do.

It’s my sincere hope that the destinations featured on here impassion you to join us. You will see and enjoy more than you ever imagined – sharing an experience and a journey with friends you have yet to meet.

I still remember the time we spent with Chris, one of the Travel Ambassadors for the company. I posted about our time together here. It was our second visit to the RV show in Hershey, Pennsylvania and it was our first year with our new coach. We had taken delivery of our coach in June of 2016. Our trip out to Pennsylvania in September of 2016 was one of several road trips that we took with our coach that year.

It seems so long ago now.

Chris was very passionate about the RV lifestyle and very passionate about Fantasy RV Tours.

She had such clarity about life, about living in the moment and about pursuing your dreams. She told me to get out there before it gets too late.

And here I am.

Still working.

Coach in storage.

Waiting.

I have about 7 months left before career ends and retirement begins. Work has not really changed in any meaningful way for me. It is still very much a high demand, high stress role and I suspect it will remain that way until I finish up late July.

Rather than being frustrated with working another 7 months or so because, believe me, I would much rather be out there right now. Especially as the cold weather descends.

No, I am choosing gratitude. To be thankful for my lovely wife and my wonderful family. To be thankful for the company that I work for as the company has allowed me to provide well for my family and the company has helped me achieve financial independence. To be thankful for the moment. Healthy. Engaged in life. Living in a wonderful country. With great friends.

For many of my American friends, they have been celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. Although the dates differ between Canada and the U.S. — Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in early October — staying focused on gratitude keeps the challenges of life in perspective.

I think most of these questions are relevant regardless of whether you are retiring at age 40 or, in my case, age 61.

I took a bit of a stab at answering the questions. Some I will have to spend a bit more time thinking about before I retire in the next few months.

Q1. How will you support yourself without a job?

In our case, we are well prepared. I have defined benefit pensions, investment accounts and government pensions that should allow us to live very well in our retirement years.

Q2. What is your backup plan for dealing with financial emergencies or hardship?

In our financial plan I have a cash buffer to cover one year of expenses. We have two topped up TFSA accounts which we can use in a pinch. There is enough in there to last us several years. We have a contingency of about 40 percent of our annual retirement income in uncommitted spend in our retirement budget. So no real worries here.

Q3. How will you get health care?

As Canadians, we do have a pretty good health care system. I also have good retirement benefits program from my employer and we will have additional travel insurance for when we head south for the winters.

Q4. How will you keep your body and mind healthy?

I’ll keep riding. Cycling does a lot to keep a body healthy. And I will do more strength and flexibility work in retirement. Lorraine and I plan to be active in terms of walking, hiking and touring. For as long as we can.

Q5. What are you retiring to?

This is the one area where we will have to make sure we put enough structure into our lives. Yes, we will be doing a lot of travel in our coach. But it is important to revisit goals and to make sure that we are keeping very engaged in life.

Q6. What will your living situation be?

We downsized our house but did not buy another property. At least not yet. Our plan is to travel in our coach for the winter and rent during the summer months in Canada. If we get to that point where we want a permanent spot in Canada, we will have lots of time and sufficient financial resources to do so.

Q7. What do you want a day in retirement to look like?

Not sure. I’ll have to give that some more thought.

Q8. What will your social circles and interactions be like?

When traveling in our motorcoach, I have absolutely no worries. We have made so many friends in our travels to date. Our time in Canada may be a bit more of a challenge depending on where we land. Generally though, our involvement in church life provides a lot of social interactions.

Q9. How will you and your partner stay one the same page about money and goals?

We talk about this part of our life constantly. We are ready and anxious to get started. I suppose the real question is what happens after the retirement date has been reached which leads to the final question.

Q10. How will you define yourself and derive self worth post-career?

I see this question a lot and I guess I’m just not that worried about it. I have always had so many interests outside of work that I suspect I may fall into the trap of becoming too busy with too many interests. We’ll see. Lorraine has always had a better perspective on what is important about life. She has not been in the career track and she has never defined herself by a job.

All in all, a good set of questions and certainly relevant to our stage of life.

Not sure that I would have been ready to retire in my early 40s like Tanja and Mark.

We’re here to dispel a big myth. There’s a myth that the RV life is only for retired folks, but that’s simply not true. Not anymore. These days, RVing is for couples, singles and families. RVing is for anyone who has ever dreamed about seeing the country (or world) up close, from one end to the other, one mile at a time.

I understand their situation. They love the RV lifestyle and they are not retired. Although it is possible to work remotely while traveling, I’m sure it comes with its own set of challenges. And certainly, it led Marc to finally quit his job after a few years of working while on the road.

There are many people attempting to monetize their websites and their YouTube channels. In a way, it is a spin on the book business: create good content, bring in a pool of followers and then try and sell a smaller number of followers on a subset of content.

It can’t be easy to sell an online education program with so much free content on the web. I wish them well.

For most of us, we have a season of life where we spend our days providing for our families and setting some money aside for the future. A time arrives where it is obvious that there may be other dreams to follow. Retirement is usually when dreams like traveling full-time in an RV can be realized.

I had a few lingering questions after I made the decision to retire in July of 2018. I posted about whether we will have enough money in retirement here and whether we will be happy in retirement here.

The last lingering question is whether we will be healthy in retirement.

And healthy must include the following factors: physical, emotional and spiritual.

What you see pictured above is a Wahoo Kickr Snap. I use it in my pain cave which I describe in this video:

A pain cave is where a person goes to suffer. On a bike. Using online training apps from places like the Sufferfest and Zwift.

This is how I choose to maintain my physical fitness. And it really does not matter what form of physical activity. Being healthy, particularly as we age, is all about movement. Keep moving. Walking. Running. Cycling. Skating. Whatever inspires you to keep moving.

Although not as convenient in a motorhome, I will be setting up a similar pain cave for my regular workouts. Hopefully, we will be in good weather most of the time and I will be able to ride outside.

To be healthy from a physical perspective means regular exercise and good nutrition. Both are completely under our control. The onset of a critical illness is often outside our control.

My life expectancy is 81 years. And, if I make it past age 65, I have better than 50% chance of making it to 80.

The best strategy is to keep as active as possible right up until the very end. And retirement provides all sorts of opportunities to keep active.

The emotional side is my development opportunity. Ensuring that I have a purpose and mission in my retirement years will be a critical component to emotional health. As will social interactions and relationships. I am not as concerned about the latter as we have met so many wonderful people in our travels with our motorcoach.

Lorraine and I enjoy a strong faith and we will continue to develop ourselves in our retirement years.

What I am learning for this part of retirement?

Keep physically and mentally active

Stay connected with family, friends and community

Keep eating a healthy diet

Volunteer to help maintain health and social contacts

Set new goals and maintain a sense of purpose

Plan for the weeks and months ahead to give yourself targets and things to look forward to

http://rvcastaways.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RVCastawaysLogo340x156-300x138.png00Richardhttp://rvcastaways.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RVCastawaysLogo340x156-300x138.pngRichard2017-10-31 14:00:412017-10-31 14:00:41The Retirement Puzzle: Will We Be Healthy?

There are times when I wish I could be like Lorraine and Tabby. They both model love, kindness and happiness to me every day. Even when I don’t deserve it!

I had posted earlier about our retirement puzzle and, now that I have committed to a retirement date, three lingering questions:

Will we have enough money?

Will we be happy?

Will we stay healthy?

I have a truly impressive spreadsheet that contains a detailed budget expense worksheet for the current year. It also contains a summary of the following financial ratios along with specific targets:

Gross Debt Service Ratio

Total Debt Service Ratio

Liquidity Ratio

Solvency Ratio

Housing Payment Ratio

Annual Savings Ratio

Debt Payment to Income Ratio

Total Savings to Income Ratio

Total Debt to Gross Income Ratio

Total Debt to After-tax Income Ratio

Total Assets to Income Ratio

We carry no debt and all of our ratios look great right now. They did not always look that way though especially in our thirties with kids and mortgages and lots of other expenses.

My spreadsheet contains a worksheet for our net worth, a detailed breakdown of our investment assets and allocation, our passive income from investments, our investment portfolio performance over the past 25 years of investing, pension estimates, income and taxes paid for my entire career, and retirement ratios for Neutral Income Retirement Target and Real Discretionary Income. The latter trying to answer the question: do I have enough for retirement?

This is not just any spreadsheet. Oh no. This spreadsheet is a work of art.

And you can see the trap, can’t you? I have approached retirement largely from the first question, from a financial perspective. I have spent countless hours over the years planning and investing to get us to this point.

But really, with less than 8 months from retirement, we will have whatever we have from a financial perspective. And it is more than enough. My real discretionary income will go up in retirement.

The second question, will we be happy, is a more important question than whether we will have enough money. Well, at least it is now once I had some confidence that we are going to have enough money in retirement!

… many people spend forty years building an impressive retirement nest egg, but no time at all thinking about how they are going to enjoy retirement. Indeed, the biggest mistake you can make with your retirement planning is to concentrate only on the financial aspects.

And,

Freedom and happiness are easier to attain than you think. Take your lesson from children. Don’t fret about the future. Don’t regret the past. Live only in the present. The happiness you have at any moment is the only happiness you can ever experience. Reminisce about your great yesterdays, hope for many interesting tomorrows, but, above all, ensure that you live today.

One more,

All things considered, your retirement reward should be a life that is at least as exciting and interesting as your work life was. In fact, with creative and constructive use of your time, you can be happier than you ever were in the workplace, regardless of how much satisfaction your work provided.

I can learn how to be happy from Lorraine. And from Tabby. That golden retriever of ours is the Zen master of happiness and contentment.

And I need to turn that question around into a statement:

We will be happy.

I know it.

I can feel it.

http://rvcastaways.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RVCastawaysLogo340x156-300x138.png00Richardhttp://rvcastaways.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RVCastawaysLogo340x156-300x138.pngRichard2017-10-27 19:28:052017-10-27 19:28:05The Retirement Puzzle: Will We Be Happy?